Shared art spaces enhance community and opportunity for local creative professionals

When Aaron Kent graduated from the Art Academy of Cincinnati in 2009, he, like most artists, had few resources.

“When you graduate, you have no studio;
they pat you on your back, give you your diploma and say, ‘Good luck,’”
says the former sculpture major.

Today, Kent is one-third of DIY Printing,
a screen-printing business housed in Essex Studios in Walnut Hills that
does commercial prints on T-shirts, posters and bags. It also offers a
free co-op for artists who cannot afford or house their 4-by-8-foot
vacuum table, with a printing arm (to ensure paper stays flat), or the
4-foot-high, 3-foot-deep washout booth (to properly dispose of ink).

While co-working sites are the newest
trend for freelance office-goers looking for cubicle-free workspaces
with shareable materials (i.e. printers, Wi-Fi, conference rooms), it’s
nothing new for the visual artist. Community has connected with art
since the coliseum was erected in Ancient Rome for public events, or
since the term “community art” was birthed in the 1960s to mirror the
era’s social change. It’s seen in municipalities’ grassroots efforts in
neighborhood art centers and, today, is a flexible term, incorporating
public art as well as collaborative.

“Understanding the location of space and
sharing it is very prolific,” says Flavia Bastos, Ph.D., director of
graduate studies in visual arts education and associate professor at the
University of Cincinnati. “In a creative practice, there is a lot to
gain when viewing others’ work, as well as learning, conceptualizing and
thinking through problems together.”

The starving artist, who is often
studio-less and resourceless, can turn to shareable workspaces in
Cincinnati, like DIY Printing to screen print, Core Clay to sculpt and
Losantiville to create three-dimensional products. By providing mutually
beneficial opportunities to artists who would not otherwise have access
to the tools, materials and spaces, these collectives inspire
collaboration and growth in Cincinnati’s arts community at large.

Common Senses

DIY Printing’s immobile tools were
hand-built by Kent to cut costs. He estimates purchasing all the
studio’s equipment could cost up to $15,000. They are available to
artists who display their seriousness through a portfolio interview, in
exchange for printing help and allowing the studio to sell half of the
artist’s prints for studio profit.

Artists, who supply their own ink and
paper, can use the 2,000-square-foot space through scheduled
appointments to screen print on posters, while other materials, like
T-shirts, cost to print. Kent offers advice, whether on formatting paper
transparency or teaching artists to print from home.

He formed DIY Printing in 2010 while
working in a Walnut Hills apartment next to Core Clay studios on Gilbert
Avenue. His childhood friend and owner of the studio, Laura Davis,
recommended he move into the artists’ communal living space, which she
purchased in 2009. She calls this 10-unit apartment building a “hippie
commune of the new millennium.” It houses nine artists, including Davis
and Kent, and one studio. The studio’s two artists-in-residence live in
the apartment building and receive free space at the studio for a year
in exchange for helping to manage the studio.

“Generally speaking, artists improve the
environment,” Davis says. “They look at the community around them and
find a way to add beauty. They make great neighbors.”

About 50 artists, who work
intermittently, share the 5,000-square-foot working space in the
basement of Core Clay. For $50, artists receive a 2-foot-deep,
3-foot-wide shelf to store work, and for $80 artists receive up to six
shelves. A month’s training provides artists with a key to the studio
and 24-hour access to the expensive, large tools that must be
maintained, like the 15 pottery wheels, a Skutt Kiln, bucket glazes, an
extruder and a slab roller. Small, inexpensive tools such as sponges,
trimming tools and wire cutters — which tend to deteriorate — are
provided by the artists.

“Our dream is to create a community of
artists that fosters creativity and practicality in the arts and grows a
long-term group of contacts for artists,” Davis says.

Here, artists can sell pieces from the
locked storefront, which is accessed by ringing the bell, or create
projects together for studio shows, like the Sept. 19 display at The
Brew House in Walnut Hills (which Davis recently purchased with her
brother).

They can swap job leads or techniques and
develop work, objectively, with the advice of peers. From 6 to 9 p.m.
on the third Thursday of the month, the studio hosts a critique open to
anyone — not just Core Clay members.

Live and Learn

Core Clay offers twice-a-year workshops
led by local artists, as well as beginning and advanced classes
throughout the year on such skills as coil and slab formation and the
pottery wheel.

DIY Printing joined the Art Academy of
Cincinnati in 2012 to offer beginning screen print classes and open
sessions at their studio. It’s part of the school’s Community Education
department, which offers an average of 75 courses, year-round, for
artists of varied skills and ages (some starting as young as age 5).
Classes range from $45 several-day-long workshops to $250
eight-to-10-week courses, which include materials.

About 20 artists, housed in Essex
Studios, teach through the Art Academy of Cincinnati or individually,
like watercolor artist Karen Kelly, who offers $5 weekly open studios to
advise and collaborate with artists of different mediums.

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“When you
touch people through education and you create projects, your network
grows,” Kent says. “It furthers your work like you never thought
before.”

Sandra Gross opened Brazee Street Studios
in Oakley in 2009 to build a similar community, reminiscent of her
graduate school classes at Miami University. “And I was tired of
teaching glass out of my basement,” she says.

The studio offers daily glass classes,
which range from $15 open houses to $500 guest-artist-led courses.
Curriculum includes how to blow and make kiln-formed glass. Some of the
25 artists, who rent individual space in the studio’s three buildings,
offer classes in their workrooms on their mediums, including steel,
mosaics and paint.

It was education that brought three UC
College of Design, Architecture, Art and Planning (DAAP) students to
form a co-op in 2009. When John Dixon returned from an unpaid internship
with native Cincinnati industrial designer Paul Loebach in Brooklyn,
N.Y., he mused about creating a co-op similar to Loebach’s. Uninterested
in working for a company, Dixon contacted fellow industrial design
graduates at DAAP to form Losantiville on Main Street in Over-the-Rhine.

There are now eight paying members, who
create three-dimensional, machine-made products and intermittently work
in a shared space with shared tools. For $175 a month, members can use
the space and communal resources. That includes common tables, an
80-watt laser cutter and a 10-inch sliding table saw. Members supply
their own hand tools (like wrenches and hammers), as well as computers
and desks for individual work.

This month, they moved into Christian
Moerlein’s former icehouse on West McMicken Avenue, which is three times
the size of their 1,800-square-foot Main Street location. This fourth
floor space will eliminate the current storefront, which proved
confusing for walk-by customers looking for an unlocked shop, but will
supply a showroom to display members’ work and possible space for
additional artists. Here, the large woodworking tools (like their table
saw and parallelogram jointer), which are now housed in a former glass
shop a street behind Losantiville, will be located in the same space
with an insulated wall separating the shop from the office.

Digital manufacturing company Such + Such
left Losantiville in July, as production outgrew the space. Other
Losantiville businesses, like The Launch Werks, aren’t ready to expand,
but can easily contract work to other members as jobs produce. The
Launch Werks co-founder Noel Gauthier enjoys the close proximity to
fellow industrial designers to bounce ideas off and collaborate when
necessary.

“I’ll walk out to get a cup of coffee,
and see someone working in the front room, ask some questions and maybe
help them work for a while,” Gauthier says. “It’s a fluid co-working
space — I’m totally hooked on that style of work.”

Office Artspace

Unlike DIY Printing, Losantiville (owned
by Dixon, Chris Heckman and Matt Anthony) and Core Clay don’t make a
profit or even use the studio name, unless promoting studio shows. Rent
is used to pay for the space and shared tools, so artists can create
their work to sell, mostly, on their own.

“You have to pay to play,” Heckman says.

Core Clay and Losantiville also house
businesses, whereas DIY Printing only helps artists on a project basis.
About 10 professionals use Core Clay studios, often selling under
pseudonyms, like Davis’ Amphora Studios. At Losantiville, each of the
eight artists has his or her own business, like Dixon’s Dixon Branded, a
furniture and design firm. These communal workspaces differ from
workroom rentals — studios are typically more, ranging from $195 to $750
a month, depending on size. These “offices for artists,” as Davis calls
them, provide no shared tools or workspaces and can be used for any
medium. They do offer networking opportunities, though, including client
and gallery opening updates. The Pendleton Arts Center’s more than 200
artists, housed in its four-building Over-the-Rhine complex, showcase
and sell work at Final Fridays (as well as galleries and stores on Main,
Sycamore and Clay streets in Over-the-Rhine). They also open the doors
the Saturday following Final Fridays.

Essex Studio’s Art Walk features work
from the studio’s more than 120 artists at the Essex Place building
quarterly. Collaborative projects are often featured at these events,
through DIY Printing open studios or last year’s public craft stations
in the building’s hallways. Co-op members with DIY Printing are invited
to sell work at Art Walks or other DIY Printing shows for free.

Some Essex “offices” include multiple
artists, too, like The Art Circle, where 17 watercolorists and some
color pencil artists share a studio, working intermittently and every
Tuesday morning on group or individual projects.

“The product and process of making art
are intertwined and equally important,” Bastos says. “The principle is
just as important as the practice.”

Brazee Street Studios facilitates similar
collaboration, despite the studio’s lack of communal workspaces. Often,
artists of different mediums work together, like when Gross made glass
shades for lamps made by a steel artist from the studio. It even hosts
craft swaps for artists to exchange tools and materials.

“Art can be very solitary,” Gross says. “It’s great to learn how we can work collaboratively in art as well as life.”

City Made

Last summer, Brazee Street Studios
launched a portfolio-based website for Cincinnati artists to market
their work in a centralized location — like Craigslist, for artists.
Starting in November, clients looking for specific mediums or projects
can search through the 40 artists at c-linklocal.com.
They hope to add as many as 45 artists for each of the 17 listed
mediums. Local gallery owners and art organizations jury artists’
submissions, and the next round of applications are due at the end of
September.

The Launch Werks co-founders Gauthier and
Anthony joined the board for CNCY MADE last spring to highlight the
city’s artists as well. Gauthier believes Cincinnati can be a
product-manufacturing hub the way it has become a hub for branding and
tech startups.

CNCY MADE publicizes small-batch
manufacturers operated locally to foster businesses, encourage local
consumption and prompt developers to build and launch additional
commodities in the Queen City. The coalition is following other
metropolises’ guides, like Made In NYC or SFMade (San Francisco), by
creating a comprehensive resource guide, which is not yet complete. The
20 local companies involved so far include Findlay Market, VisuaLingual
(a design and print studio in Over-the-Rhine) and Noble Denim (a men’s
jeans and sustainable clothes company located downtown). Plus,
Cincinnati’s low cost of living supersedes most small businesses’ burn
rates, Gauthier says.

He continues his mission through work at
the Haile U.S. Bank Foundation’s First Batch program, where he is
project coordinator. This manufacturer incubator, housed at
Losantiville, helps two recently graduated DAAP industrial designers to
create and launch their initial product line, or first batch. The
six-month program initiated at the end of May and hopes to run again
next spring.

“It’s for designers who have reached the number of products they can make out of their living room,” Gauthier says.

When leaving the program, designers will
have about 20 copies of their product, as well as prices and company
growth estimates, which they can share with the investor connections
First Batch provides.

Practices to create such functional art
ended after the Industrial Revolution, Bastos says, when people no
longer sewed their own clothes or built their own furniture. Instead,
consumers bought them, and art became a distant practice designed for
galleries, not everyday use. The resurgence of the DIY Movement and
communal workspaces reclaims, what she calls, an intrinsic need.

Essex Studios: Provides about 200 studio rentals
for varied business (i.e. artists, a church) from $200 to $750 per
month, depending on the size and number of windows. Hosts quarterly Art
Walks to display more than 120 artists’ work; outside artists can apply
for shows. 2511 Essex Place, Walnut Hills, 513-476-2170,
essexstudio@aol.com, essexstudios.com.

Pendleton Art Center: Provides 140 studio rentals
for artists in Over-the-Rhine, and 30 in Middletown with locations in
Ashland, Ky., and Rising Sun, Ind. Prices start at $195 per month.
Contributes to Final Fridays, from 6-10 p.m. the last Friday of each
month, to display and sell work at the Over-the-Rhine location, and Art
in Action, 11 a.m.-3 p.m. the Saturday following Final Fridays. 1310
Pendleton St., Pendleton, 513-421-4339, info@pendletonartcenter.com,
pendletonartcenter.com.